Tolkien's Influence Galactic?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Interesting to use "hobbit" as a relative size, smaller than "dwarf". I find it even more interesting, considering Tolkien's claim that hobbits are still around, just not visible to "big people", that the galaxies thus named are also described as "faint". Faded, perhaps?

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Yes, I was also thinking of the hobbit's supposed ability to hide from men of this Age. But who would have guessed that we would find them with a high powered telescope!

Whoever came up with the designation must be a bit versed in Middle-earth. Better than me at least, for I can't recall if a height comparison was ever made between dwarves and hobbits. Certainly hobbits are slighter and more elusive, and it seems about right, but memory fails me.

I do wonder if they would entertain the idea of actually naming the galaxies after 'historic' hobbits or their towns. Most likely we will be introduced to a generation of new hobbits with names sounding suspiciously like the names of random scientists or worse yet, numbers and letters. I suppose we might see how many Tolkien fans are to be found in the pool of astronomers, but given the choice of naming a newly found galaxy after themself or their favorite hobbit, I assume that the former would prevail.

EDIT: After a bit of a search on dwarf galaxies, it seems they are named after the constellations they are found in, or near, so perhaps we will have some new and interesting names for any futuristic RPGs, Cygnus Sandheaver, anyone?

[The Might]

Nice to see that Tolkien had so much influnce in so many fields of science.
First we have LOTR-related species, now we have galaxies.

[Mithalwen]

Hobbits I think are described as being smaller than dwarves in "Concerning Hobbits" and you may recall that Balin's spare hood and cloak were rather large for Bilbo at the start of the Hobbit. How the ent-draught assisted Merry and Pippin compared I am unsure.

However as a stargazer I am delighted by this development and since Tolkien took some trouble over his astronomy to make sure phases of the moon were consistent in LOTR and giving Elvish names to heavenly bodies (as well as astronomy- related names to many elves), I can't help thinking he would be rather pleased.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

However as a stargazer I am delighted by this development and since Tolkien took some trouble over his astronomy to make sure phases of the moon were consistent in LOTR and giving Elvish names to heavenly bodies (as well as astronomy- related names to many elves), I can't help thinking he would be rather pleased.

Although Tolkien's use of astronomy was possibly more in "poetic" than "physics" terms, I agree with you. It is really interesting... but it does not end with "hobbit" galaxies: I know about an asteroid named Bilbo... There is even an asteroid named Tolkien! I'm quite sure the Professor would be pleased...

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

If you'll forgive me, this link lends a bit of atmosphere. And though it does not mention Bilbo or hobbits or Tolkien, at the end it does give us an inkling of just how many galaxies there are. It is easy to imagine that there may be many faint ones.

Many thanks Mith, for the refresher on hobbit stature!

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Although Tolkien's use of astronomy was possibly more in "poetic" than "physics" terms, I agree with you. It is really interesting... but it does not end with "hobbit" galaxies: I know about an asteroid named Bilbo... There is even an asteroid named Tolkien! I'm quite sure the Professor would be pleased...

Well to be fair, Tolkien was unlikely to have had much scientific education himself and there has been quite a lot of progress since his day but this article which someone directed me to on another thread a while back, may be of interest.

Having live so long with light pollution it took the blessed chance of waking in the small hours during a rail journey across the Australian outback to become aware of the full glory of a starlit night (and truly "get" the Elvish wonderment at it). It inspired me to take a course but having myself opted for poetry over Physics at 16 I struggled a bit . I wonder if the stars would have been so important in Tolkien's middle earth had he not lived in his youth, at least in lands of dark skies.

While the use of names from Classical Mythology for planets and their moons is long standing, it really is quite an achievement for an invented mythology to have entered the collective consciousness to be used usefully. Splendid news...

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Yes, it is good to see that the mythology 'took', no pun intended.

[Bêthberry]

Since this thread includes Tolkien's knowledge of constellations, I'm going to post this bit here, although it is unrelated to astrophysicists' naming practices.

Mithalwen's link does not mention this reference early in LotR:

Originally Posted by Strider

Their bags they piled on the parlour-floor. They pushed a low chair against the door and shut the window. Peering out, Frodo saw that the night was still clear. The Sickle* was swinging bright above the shoulders of Bree-hill. He then closed and barred the heavy inside shutters and drew the curtains together. . . .

. . . .

*The Hobbits' name for the Plough or Great Bear.

Yes, that's right. The asterisks mark a footnote in the text, a Tolkien footnote presumbably, not a CT footnote.

What I find remarkable about this footnote is that it distinctly erases the difference between our/Tolkien's Primary World and the sub-created world of Middle-earth.

Part apparently of what we Downers have named the "Translator Conceit", it directly links the hobbit nomenclature with that of our world. Perhaps it is one way Tolkien intended to suggest that Middle-earth was but our world in an early age--that is, it is part of his fictional bag of tricks--but what it also does is tie the text to something outside itself.

That is, this footnote clearly suggests that we are to view the story world as our world, and be prepared to see similarities between the two. It would, then, put a nail (just one nail, mind you) in the coffin of davem's insistence that the text must exist independently as a text, without any external references to our world or to our own literatures, that is must best be enjoyed as internally coherent story without any references to things outside it. Yet here is Tolkien directly linking Middle-earth to our own cultural practices of naming the heavens.
It isn't a reader seeing an analogy, as in Mithalwen's link to Tolkien's use of moon phases and stars, but something directly in the text which invites the reader to see hobbits as existing in our universe, but with their own system of naming things.

Fascinating, eh?